Yep, that's what someone said to me this evening.
How..... friggin'..... dare he!
To understand why that particularly got my goat, there are three things that you must know. All three add up to a composite that is toxic in combination with the phrase "go back where you came from".
1. I've heard that phrase far too many times. Usually it is uttered by some moron who takes offense at the way I speak English, and assumes that I "don't belong here". I have been back in the US for nearly thirty years, but I still have an accent. We went to the Netherlands when I was two, I lived there till I returned as an adult in 1978. Yep, I talk funny. Deal with it.
2. My father's family have been in the US for nearly four centuries, my mother's family have been here for slightly over three centuries. My bloodline has been here since the time of Peter Minuit - heck, my ancestor sold him ale! So, 'back where I came from' is right here.
While living in the Netherlands I was always told to go back where I came from - and I have indeed done so. What's the F*^^&%G problem?
3. I was told to go back where I came from by an anti-Israel demonstrant.
The phrase, in addition to being offensively bigoted, racist, and stupid in every possible context, also has connotations that are particularly insulting when said during a pro-Israel manifestation by someone who is anti-Israel. Arabs have yelled it across the street at us outside the consulate, neo-Nazis have shouted it at us during protests, and the Stalinists have mouthed it contemptuously during "peace-marches". Dumbass rednecks think it, and along with "ah dinnut do it, offsar", it is the most complete sentence of which they are capable,
We are all were we belong. Punkt.
I gave the harrumphacker who said it an earfull. The police asked him to back off. A minor victory.
Had the police not been so very close, he would not have gotten an earfull. He would've gotten a bloody ear. He got my goat - and I want it back.
I'm still steaming. Dammit, I want to punch someone.
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THEIR NATURAL HABITAT
There are more dogs in this neighborhood than children. One very rarely sees people walking their children outside when one is, hypothetical...
4 comments:
Peter Minuit (1589 – August 5, 1638) was a Walloon from Wesel...
What a terrible way to start a sentence!
LOL - anti-Israel protestors telling someone with a funy accent to "go back where you came from" - I love the idea that they might have thought they were talking to an Israeli... :)
Sounds like a common line against pro-Israel demonstrators.
I recall the demonstration years ago by Women for Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green) protesting the Oslo Accords. Shimon Peres yelled at one of the demonstrating women, "Why don't you go back to where you came from."
How Ironic.
She was a Holocaust death camp survior who had moved to Israel.
People say that all the time. In the US they say it to indigenous Americans, whose ancestors have been somewhere between the North Pole and Tierra del Fuego for 50 thousand years.
In the Middle East they say it to people of all religions and points of view, whose ancestors have been there since before Abraham's grandma ever peed on a stick.
South Asia - don't let me start. The clicker is that most of the time, the people from whose mouth it comes are the descendants of immigrants, invaders, or both. Either ignore it, or smile politely and say "oh yes, I did that. And here I am!"
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